If you belong to any one of the above professions, then this book is for you. It's also for professionals who describe themselves as beginners, or intermediate-level professionals. The book is also suitable for old-version NNM users who wish to switch to NNMi.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Before we Manage with NNMi

What can HP SW NNMi do for us?

Choosing the right edition

Understanding Smart Plug-ins (iSPI)

Server sizing considerations

How NNMi will impact my infrastructure

Licensing policy

Installing software

Summary

Chapter 2: Discovering and Monitoring Your Network

Discovery in NNMi

How discovery works

Configuring communication protocols

Boosting up discovery with seeds

Limiting discovery with filters

Examining discovery results

Summary

Chapter 3: Configuring and Viewing Maps

Node groups

Node group map configuration

Interface groups

Path View map configuration

User interface configuration

Web browser settings

Symbols

Summary

Chapter 4: Configuring Incidents

Introduction to incidents

How incidents enter a system

Configuring NNMi forwarding SNMP traps

Configuring SNMP trap incidents

Configuring management events

Configuring NNM 6.x/7.x events

Tuning incidents

Summary

Chapter 5: Controlling Access to NNMi

How access to NNMi works

Sign in access types

Configuring SSL to Directory Service

Command line access configuration tools

User activity audit

Summary

Chapter 6: Troubleshooting, Security, and Backup

Describing NNMi processes

Describing NNMi services

Using NNMi logging processes

Ports used by NNMi

Troubleshooting tools

Environment variables

Command security issues

Backing up NNMi

Restoring NNMi

Backup and restore strategies

Configuration migration

Summary

Chapter 7: Application Failover and High Availability Solutions

Application Failover in NNMi

iSPI and Application Failover

NNMi in High Availability (HA) Server

Summary

Chapter 8: Navigating Console and Learning Network Inventory

Navigating console

Workspaces

Tools menu

Navigating network inventory and accessing details

Working with MIBs

MIB expressions

Summary

Chapter 9: Monitoring Your Network

Monitoring with NNMi

Monitoring devices for problems

Monitoring an incident for problems

Investigating problems

Configuring Custom Polling

Summary

Chapter 10: Extending NNMi

Object custom attributes

Action menu configuration

Expanding system capabilities using URLs

Summary

Chapter 11: Integrating NNMi with Other Management Tools

Integrating NNMi with HP Software BAC

Integrating NNMi with CiscoWorks LMS

Integrating NNMi with HP Software Network Automation

Integrating NNMi with Northbound Interface

Integrating NNMi with HP Software Operations Manager

Integrating NNMi with HP System Insight Manager

Integrating NNMi with HP Software uCMDB

Summary

What You Will Learn

Implement the NNMi tool in your infrastructure

Customize NNMi to give operators a clear view about what's going on in a network, keep troubleshooting tools handy, and ensure a smooth workflow between other management tools in your network operations center

Tune alarms so that you are notified of important network outages or other changes

In Detail

Every organization is on the lookout for ways to improve network availability and performance, and reduce their operating expenses. It's not funny to have to drive to a client's premises in the middle of the night without any clue as to what's going on – whether it's for an hour or for a whole day. It's even worse when the client has no or very little knowledge about what just happened because they have no tool to track the problem. Step beyond the default installations and make this tool work for you in the way you want.

This book guides you through the whole network monitoring implementation process. It covers all NNMi features and gives you hints to adapt this management software to your specific needs. It also describes how to use built-in features and adapt them in the most efficient way. It stitches the gap between technical personnel and management, covering subjects in both technical and business languages.

The book guides you from system sizing, edition, and feature selection to system customization as per your staff needs. If you are about to expand your system and bring external tools for integration with NNMi, this book is a good source to start from. It has descriptions and examples on why and how NNMi can be integrated. It explains what system designers do while sizing an NNMi system and how your system should be installed. You will also find a description on how you should design and implement your network discovery. You will learn how to create maps for your operators, so any network device that causes issues can be tracked fast, and each device position will tell each device's purpose.

Incident customization will help you configure which incidents are important for you, instead of receiving the vendor default settings with no clue as to what they mean in your situation. You will learn how to navigate between incidents and maps to reduce troubleshooting time and use your custom created tools within NNMi and become a proactive operator. The least visible but most important task in critical situations is how well you have prepared your system for disasters. This book describes backup, application failover, and clustering techniques with real-world examples. After reading this book, you will be ready to design monitoring and management tools to work along with NNMi in the way you want.

Authors

Marius Vilemaitis

Marius Vilemaitis started his career with network management systems in the year 2000, when he was invited to join a network operations center team as a systems engineer in an ISP and telecom company. In 2005 he joined an IT service delivery company as systems engineer/consultant. He focused on IT infrastructure monitoring and management tools. His role was pre-sales consultant and delivery engineer, designing and implementing monitoring tools for network operations centers and IT departments in large and mid-size companies. In 2009, he was invited to join a long term project for implementing and improving the main network operations center for one of the US federal agencies. His experience covers companies with different sizes, requirements, and approaches. His approach is "Every situation has a solution". Also, during the past few years he has provided technical training for HP OpenView and Microsoft System Center products.

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